


It's a Pity That the Water Doesn't Look Like the Sky

by Snow



Category: Bel Dame Apocrypha - Kameron Hurley
Genre: Gen, Introspection, strong woman, the world sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snow/pseuds/Snow





	It's a Pity That the Water Doesn't Look Like the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cordialcount](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordialcount/gifts).



The children, at least, were his.

Khos could tell himself that when he missed Inaya, when Batia looked at him with a roll of her eyes when they didn't do their chores, when he felt lonely and alone, when he wondered if maybe he shouldn't have stayed in Mhoria.

He could tell himself that when he rode the train on his own leaving them safe behind with his second wife, when he was met as soon as he arrived by men he knew would hate him for being a shifter, who were content to use him even when they thought he deserved his status as a person.

He could tell himself that when he stood in front of Inaya, and saw her, still so determined, still so devoted, to making this random country that he had no reason to care for accept her. When Mhoria turned out to not be a place where he could live, not somewhere he found comfortable, he left. His life had never been in danger, and he left and all he was asking of her now was that live with him instead of dying.

He'd known that she'd refuse when he'd asked her, had known that however much she might want to return to Taite and Isfahan they didn't matter to her as much as her cause. Maybe she imagined a world where they could live here safely, in Ras Tieg. Maybe that's what she told herself she was fighting for, maybe she imagined a world where she could be a mother, and not just a fighter.

The children were hers as well, after all.

All Khos wanted was her, by his side and in his bed, or even just watching their children with an expression of joy on her face that seemed alien to the face that she now presented to him. He wanted that joy to transform her in a way deeper than what any shifter could do.

He wanted, oh how he wanted. He wanted to smell the shampoo she used in her hair, and he wanted to come home to her. He wanted her to realize how much he loved her, and he wanted her to love him back. 

He didn't, frankly, give a damn about Ras Tieg, just like he hadn't cared about Mhoria.

Love wasn't the most powerful force here. 

Wasn't it supposed to be?

He'd given up on having Inaya back when she'd left Tirhan, had been able to read her determination in her face and had read there that he'd never be able to have her as clearly as he'd read that he'd never be able to have Nyx before her.

Letting her go the first time had felt like both the morally right thing to do and the wrong one.

Letting her go, leaving in her in a Ras Tiegan jail instead of dragging her out, instead of finding a way to protect her despite her own wishes, had torn at him. He might have faith in her determination, but to have faith in the world around her required so much more that contradicted everything that he'd had the opportunity to experience. 

It wasn't that she wasn't a beautifully strong woman, it was that Ras Tieg tried to eat its shifters alive, and Umayma tried to devour everything.

Khos wanted, just once, to be able to do something more for Inaya beyond provide her with the life that she'd chosen to leave in pursuit of this goal.

He couldn't.

That wasn't who he was, or maybe it just wasn't who _she_ was.

When he left her, he felt like crying, but she'd never liked it when he did that. 

It was another ten days to return to his children, but at least once he had them he could hold them, tell them that he loved them, listen to their laughter and their stories, and see how they seemed to have changed just in three weeks that he'd been gone. He couldn't imagine how Inaya imagined, could clearly see how her choice to give this up was even worse than what he would have had in Mhoria that he'd rejected. Even beyond that, it was better than Ras Tieg, but so much was.

He had wanted to hold her, to tell her that this wasn't worth it, that they could make a better world for their children in a place that wasn't Ras Tieg, the same way they could do it in a place that wasn't Mhoria. There were so many other places they could live, and he'd been able to raise the children in peace in Tirhan.

Isfahan came to the door to let him in, Batia hovering just behind her. Isfahan didn't look disappointed, couldn't, since she hadn't known what Khos had gone to do. He couldn't have explained any of it, not the details and not the fact that her mother might come home, not when even when he'd hoped he hadn't hoped enough to overcome his realism.

Batia, though, met his eyes, a question in her own blue ones.

He shook his head, and then he shrugged. Then he shook his head again, because the train ticket he had left was likely a wasted investment, even if the pictures of Taite and Isfahan weren't. Those, at least, he knew, Inaya would cherish.

Khos reached a hand to Isfahan's head -- made a joke about how she seemed taller than she'd been when he left. She laughed, but swatted his hand away when he tried to keep it there for what must have counted as too long for her. 

"Where are your siblings?" he asked, and she shrugged. She'd been in the middle of baking with Batia, and they weren't _her_ responsibility to keep an eye on.

"No," he said, softly, a smile gently tugging at his lips despite himself. "They're mine."

He left her to return to the bread she was making, to find his sons, his other daughter. This was his family, and this was the life he'd made for himself.

This was the life that he'd made for them.


End file.
